Monday, June 14, 2010

The University of Missouri Board of Curators held another meeting last night to consider the future of the school's Big 12 athletic conference.

The meeting was the the third in four days and like previous gatherings yielded no answers, though its beginning to appear that Mizzou will likely stay put in some bastardized version of the Big 12. For two key reasons:

1. Mizzou's athletic director, Mike Alden, was named Friday as the school's spokesman for conference expansion, suggesting that the university sees the Big 12 surviving.

After already luring the University of Colorado to leave the Big 12, the commissioner of the PAC-10 this weekend went on a whirlwind tour visiting Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and KU. Meanwhile, speculation is ripe that the Big 12 could lose Texas A&M to the SEC, which would leave the conference with nine teams following the loss of Colorado and University of Nebraska's departure to the Big Ten.

So where would Mike Alden and the Big 12 look if they decide to expand? One idea would be to recruit a western school or two such as Boise State.

Another option would be to keep the Big 12 at ten teams with conference commissioner Dan Beebe promising a new television contract that could bring more money to the teams.